THE PRIME MINISTER
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10 DOWNING STREET
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30 July 1979
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Thank you for your letter of 12 July in which you suggest that Britain should accept at least 15,000 refugees
from Indo-China.
As I expect you know, the Government has now announced
that it has agreed to accept, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has requested, an additional
10,000 refugees for resettlement in Britain, in addition to the 4,600 which we had already agreed to accept. The Government also proposes to make an additional £5 million available to help deal with the refugee problem over the
next 12 months.
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Lord Carrington repeated these pledges at the meeting which the U.N. Secretary-General called at Geneva on 20-21 July to discuss the whole problem. You may be interested to see the enclosed copy of his speech.
I am glad to say that the Geneva meeting resulted in a massive increase in offers of resettlement places, from 125,000 to 260,000, and in new pledges of additional finan- cial support for the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees amounting to U.S. $190 million. It also demonstrated the strength of international concern about all aspects of the refugee problem, including the plight of Cambodia, and secured undertakings from Vietnam to suspend for a time the export of boat people, and to discuss measures for the safe and orderly departure of those of its citizens who wish to
leave.
The world